Pavane and Galliard (1964)

Howells' Siciliana, “Comme le cerf soupire…”, Pavane and Galliard, and Petrus Suite were all written for pianists at the Royal College of Music. The rich and lilting Siciliana (1958) with its characteristic dotted rhythm, was completed in an afternoon and gently builds to an impassioned climax, after which the tension is gently dispersed. By contrast, the Pavane and Galliard (written for Margaret Bruce) is a much darker response to the renaissance idiom; written in 1964 at a point when he was also working on his Stabat Mater, it is characterised by the torturous harmonic language of the Pavane (intensified by the dance form) and nervous anxiety of the Galliard.

- Jonathan Clinch, Royal Academy of Music, 2020